


this is how it's going to be

by carlemon



Category: Bully (Video Games)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-23
Updated: 2017-10-23
Packaged: 2019-01-21 19:44:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12464559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carlemon/pseuds/carlemon
Summary: we all have 1 oc shipped w/ a fave dont lie to urself





	this is how it's going to be

**Author's Note:**

> we all have 1 oc shipped w/ a fave dont lie to urself

It’s not winter yet but he smells like it, feels like it, his hand cold and clammy in hers, enveloping her in damp. When she leans up against him, more to suffuse a little warmth into him than out of any sort of affection, she can smell spearmint and chlorine and oak, cold hearths and wet tarmac rubbed into the folds of his rumpled collar. 

Dolly’s never been a fan of winter. October, and she’s sure she can see frost down the bridge of her nose; October, and her legs quiver against his, knees shivering against the scratchy material of her tights. She picks at the seam along the inside of her thigh with her idle hand, and pretends she doesn’t notice his eyes following the movement out of habit, glad to let him have that, at least. 

“Anyways,” he’s saying, “I’ll probably just hire Hopkins to do it— or one of those new kids. Actually, I don’t even think they need to be hired— it’s shameful, really, but it’s good for them to know their place early on, don’t you think? Hopkins has been getting all— well, uppity lately. Like he thinks he’s better than us.” He makes a desperate, offended sound, fingers frighteningly tight for a second ‘round hers. When she whines, he makes a vague noise of apology, shifting a little further away from her to give her a little more space. She doesn’t appreciate the thought. “You know, he doesn’t even talk to Tad, not since he made it clear he’s planning to take over. Not that I blame him, per se, chap’s been going off the deep end lately, —don’t tell anyone _I_ told you that— but it’s _deplorable,_ a disgrace— are you listening?”

She'd curled up somewhere in the middle of his tangent without realising it, only unfurling to acknowledge him upon his provocation. Lifting her chin from its position atop her scabby knees, she rests her head on his shoulder, gliding a thumb over his in her best attempt at comfort. “Mhm. ‘m’sorry. ‘s cold, is all. Y’can keep goin’.” She offers him a halfhearted grin, crooning mawkishly when his free hand curves ‘round to rest on her shoulder, rubbing uncertain circles into the scratchy leather of her jacket. It’s endearing, how he tries, no matter how rarely, his unneeded ministrations pleasant white noise in a sea of engine clamour and profanities scratching incessantly at her ears.  

“Oh. I guess. Well, Parker’s at the dorms this week, and you _couldn’t_ follow me to Harrington.” With some vague, self-deprecative, sense of amusement, she half-expects him to add on a dismissive _we already have Chester, we don’t need another dog._ He doesn’t, but the way he pauses makes it obvious he’s checking to see if he’s offended her: when she hums in encouragement, he clears his throat a little too obviously to obscure the noise, like the feel of her hand in his will disappear, forgotten, if he’s loud and abrasive enough. “Swim ended late today,” he explains, face going soft in reflection, overwhelmed by a quiet joy she can’t relate to because she can’t keep herself warm and she can’t keep a boyfriend who isn’t allowed to as so much breathe at her her without getting shit, and she sure as shit can’t swim,  “and it’s been a while since we’ve— gone— out. So, I thought—”

“I like it,” she interrupts, because she does: the gym’s just _nice_ when it’s not smelling of feet or blood or sweat. If not for the oppressive cinch of the uniforms, she might’ve taken up cheerleading and permanently install herself in it, a jock by association and later maybe even by allegiance. (Justin’d like that.) (The thought of that, treacherous in itself, is not allowed.) She cocks her head at him to watch him swallow, pretending to think. 

“So get a little kid t’ do it,” is her eventual offer, appropriately simple against all his grand scheming. “The new ones this year’re real ballsy. Me ‘nd Lefty, we caught one out by the Tenements. On his own. Like, the _stones—_ not even I go past curfew.” He frowns at her and she mirrors his furrowed brow, wriggling against him and getting a shot of chlorine-smell for her trouble. “Honest! ‘s creepy as all hell, come dark. You ever gone?”

He shakes his head. “I thought—” _then:_ “Bif told me,” he amends, when what he means is indeed _that he thought, that he knew,_ “that you all live there, in the same room. I’d’ve thought you’d have gotten used to it, by now.”

She giggles into his shoulder, the closest she’ll ever be to the sleepy softness of cashmere and Aquaberry. “I guess. I’unno— I only been there once or twice.” Her voice drops, conspiratorially, timorously. “I don’ think they think I’ve earned it. Not yet.”

He snorts. “What, the right to live in that little rat-hole of degenerates? What an honour.”

“It ain’t that bad— you’re thinkin’ of the little kids’ comm, I think. I heard that nerd chick, Gloria, found, like, an actual raccoon in there. Half-rotted.” She wrinkles her nose, the mere idea of it tasting like steel wool over her knuckles, astringent and unwelcome, prickly. He pets her head, a lukewarm but consolatory —no longer reluctant— gesture, his fingertips soft as the knots of her buns are hard, rendered rigid by hairspray and pomade she’d snagged from de Luca and slathered, inexpertly, all over her scalp. 

“That’s vile. _Rancid_. ...Do you really think one of the new kids would do it?”

“I woulda done it, when I was a little kid.” She shoots a pondering glance at him, grinning almost shyly. “Maybe even now, if I was real pissed off. I dunno.”

He laughs, and it sounds and it smells and it _tastes_ — it tastes like _derision_ , and _cold_ , and wet wet chlorine. “Of course you would.” he says, with affection that she knows she’s no longer imagining, and she sticks her tongue out at him, lips skimming the space where his collar —silk— meets his throat, —silky— unapologetically smitten with the uncertain hitch of his breath.

They sit there for an age, Justin’s legs swinging over the edge of the empty pool and Dolly’s tucked tight to her chest, ‘til he clears his throat, punctuating it with another uncertain squeeze of her hand.

“You know, I’m not complaining, but it’s— odd that you’re not objecting to this.” He eyes her half-suspiciously, probably to impress upon her the severity of his concerns. She puffs out her cheeks at him. “The BMX park— it’s _your_ turf, yes? Yours; the greaseballs’.”

She’s too cold and tired to be bothered by the distinction. “Basically.”

“And Tad and Parker and I, the lads, we’re going to egg it, yes?”

“You’re gonna trash it, yeah.” 

“That doesn’t bother you.” A statement, not a question. (With preppies, she’s found, they tend to be the same.) She inspects her fingernails through the gaps between his fingers and sighs through her teeth, picking at the truth with broken nails and resisting the urge to scratch at her sticky hairline.

“I ain’t gonna do anythin’, if that’s what you’re so curious as to.”

“Mm, yes. But, why?” He doesn’t quite look at her when he asks, but even the little curl at the end of his every vowel, his bare lisp, demand an answer. His inflection is just nice enough for her not to mind.

“You’re gonna do it no matter what, yeah? ‘n’ Johnny’ll beat your ass— I mean it. Put like that, it ain’t my problem.”

Put like that, she shouldn’t be here at all; put like that, she should be breathing all Justin’s —and _Tad’s_ — filthy secrets down Lola-and-Peanut’s necks, not cuddled up in the arm of some damp preppy, an assumed easy armful for when he couldn’t pull a cheerleader. She wishes she wanted to tell him; let him know that she knows, and she could tell the entire damn world. 

Instead, she noisily expels the breath puffed up in her cheeks. Justin laughs meekly, not as self-assured as he should be, and leans over to rest his head atop hers. “And what’ll you do? You won’t be there, will you? I presume— absent?” He implores her in a rush, frantically fervent and unwilling to admit it. She doesn’t call him out on that, either. 

“Nah. I don’ wanna faceful of egg. Thissa new jacket, y’know. Leather.”

His lip curls. “ _Faux._ And Johnny, he won’t notice?”

Her shoulders, tiny in her shitty jacket, quirk, their lackadaisical slope betrayed by the sudden fatigue that tugs at the corners of her mouth, threatening scorn. “The boys won’t notice nothin’. I’ll figure it out. Cheer’s startin’ ‘round that time. Maybe I’ll try out. Maybe I’ll get in, this time.”

 It comes out sadder than she intended, certainly sadder than she feels, enough for him to notice. He goes very, very, quiet, his sneer of " _peons_ ,” succeeded by a sigh, punctuated with another meaningful squeeze of her hand. “That’d be nice,” he admits, smiling when she laughs, utterly failing to recognise the bitterness in it. “You could join the swim team,”

“I could.” She doesn’t want to talk about this. It seems that he does.

“I keep telling Derby we’d be so good with the jocks; we could totally  _destroy_ those greaseballs—”

“Yeah, I know.” She wrenches herself away from him, wiping her damp hands on the jacket and getting to her feet with one easy motion, her traitorous, shivering, legs selling out her attempts to cement the hard line of her mouth into her face. “Y’told me. Too bad Derby ain’t a fan, huh?”

He blinks up at her, looking for all the world genuinely perplexed by her exhaustion. Probably seeing a varsity jacket instead of cheap leather and a broken zip. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah, jus’ tired. ‘n’ cold. You got _real_ cold hands. Can you walk me to the girls’ dorm?” When he hesitates, she pouts, tacking on a winsome “ _Please?”_

God bless him, Justin’s not as dim as she thinks he is; certainly not even half as stupid as _he_ thinks _she_ is. “Did I— say something?”

“Nah. Promise. Pinky promise.”

She feels ten times more of a kid saying it, but only then does he return her shaky smile, donning the nuances of his accent and prep face as easily as she had her jacket in the morning. Breathing out, she chokes on the ghost of the chlorine in the air, smelling cold and charcoal when she reaches for his hand and he wipes his palm on his slacks instead, working out the kinks in his sweater.

She wonders what the others’d make of Tad, and if it'll hurt him more than Justin when she tells.  


End file.
